Coastal officials want passenger rail service back on track

"All aboard!" is something that hasn't been shouted in these parts for a decade.

But despite political pressure in Washington, D.C. over Amtrak's funding, local officials and consultants are hopeful that passage of passenger rail reauthorization legislation could signify a milestone toward restoring activity along the Gulf Coast.

"This isn't about nostalgia or rail fans, it's about economic development and it's about commerce," said John Robert Smith, chairman of the board with Transportation for America - a non-profit alliance that pushes for grassroots support of progressive transportation policy in the U.S.

"It's about security and evacuation and movement of goods in and out before and after tropical storms and hurricanes," Smith, a former long-time mayor of Meridian, Miss., added. "It impacts southerner's lives on many different levels."

Congressional action

The eyes of passenger rail supporters will be fixed on the U.S. Senate on June 24, when its version of a passenger rail reauthorization bill surfaces. A House version, approved earlier this year, requires the Federal Railroad Administration to conduct a study into what kind of service can be restored east of New Orleans, what markets could be served, how much it costs and how it could be financed.

The House version of the Passenger Rail Reform and Investment Act of 2015 calls for a working group to evaluate restoring service between New Orleans and Orlando. A similar group is expected to be included in the Senate version.

Under the House legislation, the group's membership would include representatives of Amtrak, the states and communities along the proposed route, regional transportation and metropolitan planning organizations, the Southern Rail Commission (SRC), and freight railroads whose tracks may be used for the passenger trains.

If the legislation is passed in the Senate, the group would have nine months to complete its review. If legislation is not approved, the FRA could opt to still do a study of restoring the Gulf Coast rail, but the timeline to do so could last up to two years, Smith said.

"The House passed legislation that they will have to study this anyway," Beth Osborne, senior policy advisor with Transportation for America, said. "This planning is to restart service that really should not have ended and really should have been up and running once the system was fixed, post-Katrina."

Looking forward with daily service

Passenger rail has been suspended along the Gulf Coast since Hurricane Katrina ravaged the region in 2005. The last train to operate along the line was the Sunset Limited, which operated three-day-a-week runs through the coastal states and west toward Los Angeles.

Supporters of passenger rail restoration, spearheaded by the SRC, do not want a return to those days. The group, instead, wants the FRA to study daily passenger rail service operating among three or four states along the Gulf Coast.

"The communities across the Gulf Coast are not in support of bringing back the service the Sunset Limited represented," Dan Dealy, a consultant who has long been focused on examining the restoration of passenger rail along the Gulf Coast, said. "They are looking at a daily level of service that may build into the future."

Struggles with funding study

The SRC -- a group of advocates for restoring Gulf Coast service with commissioners from Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama -have been pushing, with Transportation for America's support, in getting a study financed.

It hasn't been easy. The group requested $1 million in federal Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) grant money through the U.S. Department of Transportation. It was unsuccessful in securing the money that went to select areas of the country where applications were supported with much higher local matching funds.

"The TIGER program is extraordinarily competitive," Osborne said, noting that about 95 percent of applicants do not get the grant money.

The next step was to approach the FRA and apply for a $950,000 grant to allow SRC to conduct its own study of restoring Gulf Coast service. The FRA, much like the USDOT, opted to choose projects where local matching funds were greater and the Gulf Coast was left without a way to pay for a study.

The latest efforts, if approved by Congress, could offer the best solution for the SRC. Under the reauthorization legislation, Congress would require the FRA to conduct the study itself that does not require local matching money.

Concerns over anti-Amtrak rhetoric

Dealy, though, is concerned about some of the rhetoric coming from local congressmen.

During a town hall meeting Monday in Daphne, Dealy pressed U.S. Rep. Bradley Byrne, R-Fairhope, about why he voted in support of legislation to eliminate Amtrak's funding. The proposal, which was defeated by the full House, was sponsored by U.S. Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Huntsville.

"I don't want to take taxpayer dollars to subsidize a failed public transportation system," Byrne said. "If there is a way spin off the parts that are profitable, then good. But Amtrak doesn't operate down here. They abandoned us years ago. It really doesn't help the people in my district."

Byrne said he has discussed the possibility of restoring passenger rail with a private entity, but Smith said he's skeptical.

"The notion that the private sector is just waiting to come in and operate trains is not accurate or realistic," he said. "You don't mind competition at all, but we need to be realistic. A private operator that knows what they are doing is going to expect someone to pick up any operating loss the line experiences."

Smith said that Amtrak, which was created in 1971, is the only passenger rail entity allowed by the federal government to operate on freight train lines similar to the CSX line that runs through Mobile.

Dealy said there could be alternative operators for a restored Gulf Coast line, but they would also require some sort of taxpayer assistance.

"Someone has to indemnify the states against any accidents and Amtrak does that," Smith said. "Some of these would-be operators don't have the insurance coverage and are looking at the state to provide coverage during an accident."

Local support

Dealy said that despite congressional distancing from Amtrak, he's seeing local support swell for passenger rail.

"There is a dichotomy between local representation and the communities and what you are hearing from the federal legislators," Dealy said. "The federal legislators tend to be working along party lines. But locally, even down to the county level, we've had a positive response."

Dealy said the support includes Florida, in which the West Florida Regional Planning Council - representing five regional planning areas within the Florida panhandle - has vocalized its support for the restoration of passenger rail.

Support also has come from casino operators along the Mississippi coast, chambers of commerce and a host of mayors from Florida to New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu.

"We have mayors across the Gulf Coast, businesses across the Gulf Coast who are all supportive," Dealy said.

He noted that Amtrak, as a brand, may have become a political hot potato as Republicans have moved on slashing the company's funding to $1.3 billion, down from $1.4 billion last year.

"We need to reframe the question from Amtrak to passenger service," he said.

Amtrak cost estimates: 'A little fat'

Amtrak remains the most likely candidate for the restoration of passenger service along the Gulf Coast.

Smith said the company could have surplus equipment that could be utilized along a restored Gulf Coast line. In addition, a FRA study is likely to examine the present condition of former train stations along the route and see what type of renovations will be needed.

Costs, of course, will be an issue. A 2009 Amtrak study estimated the price range for restarting the service from $57.6 million to $96.6 million.

Those figures rose when Amtrak issued a cost analysis in 2013, which shows capital needs between $68.5 million to $122 million.

Smith said the figures don't tell the full story. Amtrak is scheduled to receive new passenger rail cars later this year or early in 2016, which will allow some of its existing fleet to be repurposed along re-started rail lines. As such, the estimated costs will drop by up to $76.5 million.

Smith also said that further cost reductions could be found in station restoration, which is estimated for $20.5 million. He said that a majority of that estimate comes from making train stations handicap accessible, which he said is more of an issue for Amtrak on a national scale and shouldn't apply to solely to the Gulf Coast route's restoration.

Amtrak also estimates its costs to operate the Gulf Coast line at $15.2 million annually, which Smith described as "a little fat."

Smith said there has never been a study on how much it would cost to operate a passenger rail service from New Orleans to Florida for daily trips.

He said the FRA's analysis could look into whether the daily trips should terminate in Mobile or extend into Florida. A short-distance train traveling through three or four states, Smith said, could accommodate its operating losses through an annual appropriations by state governments.

"We've had a lengthy conversation about everything," Smith said, referring to the SRC's talks with Amtrak. "They think this would be a good service."

Train station revival

Dealy said there has been enthusiasm in some communities for train stations, which he said help generate economic development activity where they are located.

Two locations, in particular, show that the development of a train station within the city's downtown hub can generate significant economic activity.

Meridian, Miss. - where Smith was mayor from 1993-2009 -- spent $1 million in city tax money to restore its historic train station. The expenditure was leveraged with $5 million in federal, state and private money, resulting in $135 million in nearby economic development.

Normal, Ill., utilized a combination of federal funding, local taxes and tax-increment financing to build a multimodal transportation center to replace an aged train station. The activity helped generate $220 million in economic development in the Uptown Normal district, including two new hotels. The Normal station allows passengers to commute to either Chicago or St. Louis.

Bob Campbell, mayor of DeFuniak Springs, Fla. - about a two-hour drive east from Mobile, or 75 minutes south of Dothan - wants his city to benefit as well. He said his community's downtown revival would be enhanced with the presence of passenger rail.

Campbell said there would be interest from Louisiana residents who want easy access to a Florida beach. Conversely, he said that Florida panhandle residents would utilize the train for trips to the casinos in Mississippi.

A train depot, which currently serves as a museum, could be restored into a train station with little cost, Campbell said.

"It wouldn't take much at all to bring it up-to-date," he said.

In Mobile, where a train station no longer exists, Dealy said the potential exists for a new one at the foot of Government Street where the old one formerly existed near Cooper Riverside Park. Hurricane Katrina assisted in the station's demise.

Dealy, who was part of former Mayor Sam Jones' team at one point, said he's unsure what current Mayor Sandy Stimpson's long-range comprehensive plan might include with regards to passenger rail.

But he said a train station along the city's waterfront could be an attraction.

Stimpson has also expressed support for passenger rail and has the Coastal Alabama Partnership's CEO Wiley Blankenship serving as a city representative during SRC meetings.

"The way we are approaching it is that anything that is an enhancement to transportation that brings commerce and economic development to coastal Alabama and Mobile, we're for that," Blankenship said. "Are we working diligently to get this established? It's not really on the priority list ... it's not on the top of the list. But we don't want to be dismissive of it because looking at the future and the trends and everything that passenger rail would be ... would be beneficial to Mobile."

Tourism also continues to be growing in the Gulf Coast, with New Orleans experiencing resurgence in activity since Katrina, Orlando continuing to be a hot spot for families and the hotels along the Gulf Coast beaches booming since the devastation of the BP oil spill.

Meanwhile, the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs is heading up a study for resuscitating Amtrak's "Gulf Breeze" route from Mobile to Montgomery to Birmingham. The Gulf Breeze train has not been in operation since 1995.

Dealy said technological advancements, such as Uber, could help increase interest along the Gulf Coast. The Uber app, which has not yet been utilized fully in the coastal states, has fast become one of the most popular mobile functions that allow users the ability to hail a taxi ride through their cell phones.

"The younger kids won't have a problem hopping a train and then using Uber in New Orleans," Dealy said. "It's becoming much easier (to commute)."

Dealy notes that is a futuristic view of what could happen along the Gulf Coast. He, along with other passenger rail supporters, hope that each step in the restoration process is positive.

"The No. 1 goal is to get service restored east of New Orleans that was lost due to Katrina," Smith said. "It's no fault to the four states that were impacted and of all the things that have been restored since Katrina, passenger rail is ... a glaring omission."